T’was the night of Halloween
I hate writing about the game after a Steelers loss. I really hate it. But write I must, so here goes.
T’was the night of Halloween
And all through Steeler Nation
Black and Gold fans
had an eerie sensation
The Steelers had traveled
To the heart of the Bayou
To take on the Saints
Show them a thing or two
The New Orleans fans
were dressed in costumes for the day
At least that’s what I thought
Perhaps they ALWAYS look that way (yikes!)
The Steelers scored first
Touchdown by Randle El
But the referees reversed the call
Bayou mojo! Oh Hell.
Arians telegraphed running plays
So obvious, anyone could see
So instead of a touchdown
we had to settled for 3
The two teams did battle
They both have tough defenses
They hit one another so hard
They both lost their senses
For three whole quarters
Neither team could do much
Then came the 4th
Cajun voodoo! Just a touch.
Brees came alive
threw TD pass first
Ben tried to do the same
But somehow he seemed cursed
The Steelers still had a chance
to win this thriller
Until those bayou sorcerers
put a hex on Heath Miller
Steelers couldn’t overcome the evil magic
though they tried again and again
They still fell to the bayou devils
score 20-10
That Cajun voodoo
got the best of us this night
but happy Halloween to all
And to all a good fright.
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Ha, creative!
It was a good game for the most part. The Steelers were simply outplayed by a team that was ready to destroy anything that was in their way…well, after Cleveland left. Who pays attention to them, anyways?
I will say that the Steelers’ D needs to cover the short pass better. Brees saw that the short routes weren’t really being effectively defended, and thus wnet 20/22 in the second half. We can’t win that way. Ben needs to learn to check down, too. There were instances where (surprise!) he held the ball too long against a rabid pass rush, when he could have checked it down to avoid the sack. Of course, this advice always falls on deaf ears…
Oh, well. Bengals on MNF next week. Hopefully our boys have a bit of frustration to work out…and the Bengals are the perfect target!
1I do not live in the Burgh unfortunately. So I have to get the post game reaction from the Post Gazette and blogs. Did anyone read Gerry Dulac’s :Grades by Position’? He was tough on the Steelers. I agree. It was a sub-par performance.
Here are two of his grades with my comments (I need to vent!):
Coaching Grade C-:
• Poor adjustments on Offense. Cover the blitz or hit the hot read. Again no draws, few screens, no shovel passes, few counters.
• BA and his insistence on running on first down from an obvious running formation led to too many 3 and longs. We are not good enough to blow people off the ball and impose our will on the ground.
• Is anyone asking why Mendenhall hasn’t had 100 yds since Ben is back?
• Tomlin’s poor use of challenges. The fumble he challenged was nowhere near a fumble and then NOT challenging Mendenhall’s near TD puzzled me. Won’t see Bellicheck blow those.
• Why not a ‘no-huddle’ earlier to get a spark?
• DON’T try a 51 yd field goal in a game like that! Punt the ball!
Ben’s Grade ‘D’:
• Wow! He looked out of it. He had such a blank look on his face like he didn’t take his meds or that he took the wrong ones.
• Accuracy was way off. Bad underthrows.
• He didn’t seem like he had a feel for the game – no adjustments, audibles, improvisations, etc.
Lastly, I didn’t see any criticism of Randl El. I love that guy and I’m glad he is back. But, he made two errors that ended up (potentially) causing us 2 TDs. He has to get into the end zone on that play. Get skinny, change direction – he HAS to get in. Second, on the pass in the end zone that was short, he has to come back for it! If he does, it is easy PI and Steelers ball on the 1. (Not that that is a gimme!)
Tough loss to a determined opponent-that I can handle. But when we don’t seem to make schematic adjustments – it worries me.
2John#21,
I feel your pain. To be honest, part of the reason that I chose to write a poem, rather than my usual post-game analysis, was that I wanted to keep it positive. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to do that if I wrote about what I saw in that game.
I agree with every criticism that you wrote. I’m surprised that you didn’t mention that Randle El seems to think that a punt returner’s job is to signal for a fair catch. He never seems to try to actually run the ball anymore. That’s why they had to go to Emmanuel Sanders on punt returns. At least he tries to return the ball.
Big Ben looked like a deer in the headlights out there. Sure, they were blitzing, but that’s what hot reads are for. Ben doesn’t seem to process information quickly enough. I’ve always felt that that was what separated Ben from Brady and Manning. Ben has superior physical skills. Brady and Manning have superior mental skills.
I don’t even want to get into Bruce Arians’ play calling, or I might punch a hole in my computer screen. Suffice it to say that not scoring from the 6 inch line was pathetic.
And the offensive line didn’t seem to make the slightest adjustment to the constant blitzes. They seemed totally baffled.
Grrrrrrrrr!!!
3I live in Maryland so this was actually one of the first games I got to watch. Overall, I would have to say that the Steelers are simply not as good (right now) as we (or some of the pundits) thought. Of course, no team really impresses me at the moment so its not that big of a deal. For example, we all agree they didn’t play that well and they still almost beat a desparate SB Champion on the road. Also, it’s only the beginning of November.
That being said, the offense has definite room for improvement. Ben can’t get in a rythym, the offensive line still isn’t any good, and the play calling sucks. On a positive note, as the season continues, the junior WR’s will gain more experience and then they might actually run the correct route and not deflect potential TD’s away from the primary receiver!!!!!
I’m not worried about the defense as long as it doesn’t have any more injuries. Yes, it gives up too many short passes but it’s designed to do that. LeBeau’s defense is built around stopping the run and the long pass – under the assumption that if you have to run 10-15 plays to score a TD…something will go wrong along the way (dropped ball, sack, deflection, fumble…etc.). Hence, some of the QB’s we’ve faced have posted 60%-70% completion percentages by always checking down but we still win the game (usually).
4Dang! I spent alot of time preparing for my comment today and John #21 didn’t leave ONE thing out. 100% agree. However, I will say this. Someday people will realize that Tomlin isn’t all people think he is. I truly believe he is a very good man. He has to be to have been with Dungy. He’s passionate. Has great energy. But unfortunately, he is a pretender when it comes to coaching. Sorry. Put him in Buffalo, Detroit, Arizona, etc… and he could not turn things around. He has great one liners! But eventually you must make great decisions (assistants, situational calls, backing up your threats, developing offensive identity, etc…) and he just doesn’t do that very well. I believe he ranks in the middle of all head coaches in NFL. When Dick L. retires all my haters will have to conceed as they see I am right.
With as much talent as the Steelers have many coaches could come and be somewhat successful for a while. I had to laugh when Tomlin seemed so excited about calling a TO when the Saints shifted from FG try. Even Chris Collinsworth thought he was brilliant then. Geez! Does it really take a great coach to figure out to call that? How about getting the other situational calls right (ala John#21′s points).
Ok, I’m through with my rant. Lord, I hope we knock the brakes off Cincy Monday night!
5Spookey in the Dome
6Saints blitzed early and often
BA was surprised
@Tony – Yeah, John#21 has a way of being thorough like that. Sorry to hear that he stole your thunder.
7#1 – The Steelers were outplayed. Failing to score from the goal line was not BA’s fault. He did what we’ve all been clamoring for him to do. He ran it. He tried the left side, the middle, and the right, and the offensive linemen couldn’t clear the way. Miller’s fumble was not BA’s fault, nor was Ben’s lack of accuracy or holding on to the ball when he should’ve chucked it at someone’s feet. It wasn’t BA’s fault that Meachem was left WIDE open at the end of the game. The Steelers just didn’t rise to the occasion, they were outplayed.
#2 – BA did have some bad calls for sure, especially in 1st and 20 where he impatiently called three long passes (part of that is Ben too though). The second series where we were backed up was worse. A draw, a fake end-around screen pass (what the heck?), and then finally we get around to a short slant that should’ve been called on first and second downs. BA was far from great, but no worse than usual. The problem was he didn’t have a lot to work with. I think the question of why Mendy has struggled ever since Ben came back is a very important one, though.
#3 – I was watching on a fuzzy screen, but some of the penalties called really surprised me. Did Hines really commit offensive pass interference on the goal line? Did Harrison really hit Brees late? Even if he did did it look to anybody else like he was pretty obviously held before he got there? It looked to me too when Troy was called for defensive pass interference that his hand was resting on the defenders hip just like every good DB does when they go for the interception. As I said, the Steelers lost because they were outplayed not because of the refs, they didn’t execute, and they didn’t enforce their will. I’d like to know what y’all thought about those calls though.
8Have to vent. Did anyone read the Post Gazette? We WEREN’T ready for the crowd noise? What level of football is this?? Complete indictment of the Coaching staff? That is incredibly lame. Was the noise the same in Q1 as it was in Q3&4? Is our QB a rookie? We couldn’t adjust??? WTH!
What a shame to lose Thaddeus Gibson! A promising 4th round pick on a team that has a D-Line aging right before our eyes! Was the pick bad – do we regret it? Or did we outsmart ourselves thinking we could get him through waivers? Why keep Frank Summers on the Practice Squad? Does he have greater potential & future value than Gibson? (Answer: No freakin’ way!)
Is this Tomlin’s call or Colbert’s? For an organization that trumpets accountability…show some!
9(Ok…I’m a little better now! Keep me away from the paper.)
John#21
Matt:
10IMO-those calls were close but you couldn’t really argue that they were penalties. Hines definitely extended his arm and made contact with the defender in front of him. James hit Brees after he released it in the pocket. (That’s the key-if he was out of the pocket and that hit occurred the same way I don’t believe it would have been called.) Troy definitely grabbed the WR. Like many penalties, it’s the consistency of the calls that puzzles most of us. Why the same play is called one time and not another (O-Line Holding of course being the worst, most inconsistent call of all.) I used to say hockey always puzzled me on why penalties are called some times and not others—pro football is coming in a close second! And I actually understand football!
Matt,
Good points. I was actually just having some fun at Bruce Arians’ expense. But I don’t blame him for the loss (well, not totally).
I do think the offense should have adjusted more to the constant blitzes. How many times did the Saints blitz, and the receiver who should have been the hot read on the play wasn’t even looking for the ball?
As far as the penalties go, Hines Ward did push off the defender before the ball arrived. Also, Troy did grab the receiver prior to the ball arriving. He knew that he had done it even before the ref called the penalty. Harrison’s penalty I wasn’t as sure about. It was a late hit, but when you’re coming with momentum like that, it’s hard to stop sometimes. That’s why I get so concerned with judgment calls like that. Sometimes a player can’t just stop on a dime.
As far as your question about why Mendy’s production has dropped off since Ben came back, I’d love to hear people’s theories on that one.
11John#21,
The Thaddeus Gibson loss is HUGE. I watched that kid all summer long at training camp, and he was awesome. He still had a lot to learn, but his pure physical skills were great. He was unstoppable in backs-on-backers drills. I thought he was far more dominant than Jason Worilds (although Worilds missed quite a bit of time due to injury). With Woodley’s future unsure, and Harrison threatening to retire each time he gets fined, Gibson was a big loss.
Despite that, the team didn’t have many options. They couldn’t have cut Frank Summers as you suggested. Frank wasn’t on the active roster. Someone from the active roster had to be released. That is what made the decision so hard.
Personally, I would have released Aaron Smith. I know that sounds crazy, but that’s what I would have done. I doubt that another team would have been interested in a player his age who is injured right now, and who has been injured 3 times in the last 4 years. Besides, with his tenure, he wouldn’t have been eligible for the waiver system. He would have had to have been released outright like Byron Leftwich was earlier in the year. Then he would have just resigned with the Steelers when they had room on their roster.
Beyond Smith, anybody they chose to release would have been a gamble. It was a tough call.
12